No snow for Snowdon by 2020

Welsh scientists are warning that the principality’s highest mountain will be snow-free in 13 year’s time.

There has been less snow this winter since recording began 14 years ago. The summit is still without snow cover.

A study from the University of Wales, Bangor, shows snow levels decreasing by about 35% in the last ten years. Scientists work out this would mean the snowline rising by 560m, but only the top 300m is usually covered, so the peak of Wales’s and England’s highest mountain will soon be without its traditional winter covering.

Average spring temperatures have risen 2.5 degrees C in the last 30 years. Simon Bareham, senior climate change adviser to Countryside Council for Wales, said: “So far this season, from September until now, we have seen the least accumulation of snow on top of Snowdon since records began 14 years ago.

“We have a weather station on Snowdon and we have only seen a couple of snowfalls this winter. There is no snow on the summit today.

“In the 1960s, during bad winters we would see snow on Snowdon from September right through until May.”

In addition to spoiling grough’s fun playing in the snow and ice, the rise in temperature has serious consequences for rare alpine flora that grow on the mountain-tops and means more invasive plants such as bracken moving up the mountains.

The Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains are also predicted to be snow-free by 2020.

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20 February 2013

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